


I'll Be Here

by babbyspanch



Category: Klaus (2019)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, M/M, Pining, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21553342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babbyspanch/pseuds/babbyspanch
Summary: The word 'adore' holds a lot inside it, Jesper can't stop thinking about all the implications.
Relationships: Alva/FOC, Jesper Johanssen/Klaus
Comments: 17
Kudos: 251





	1. 1

Sometimes Jesper thought about words before he said them. Not  _ often _ , but sometimes.

When he did, he'd think about their rhythm, the way they wriggled from his mouth and tumbled on deaf ears more often than not. Sure, people paid attention to him-- they couldn’t really not with how his dad loomed over the postal service-- but the words he used? The inflection? It just was a garnish Jesper threw on for himself, a michelin chef at a soup kitchen.

That had been before Klaus, of course. His life could be divided pretty cleanly into sections-- before mom and after mom, before going postal and… well post.

And now Jesper had Before Klaus, and After Klaus. He should probably have been referring to it as ‘pre-Smeerenburg’ but… Jesper knew what really made the difference and it wasn’t a collection of ramshackle houses dunked in ice.

Klaus made the difference with his words too. Suddenly-- pushed up the side of a carriage, squeezed and smushed between the wood and the solid bulk of the strange woodsman beside him who was as silent as a deer in snow and every word Jesper said felt ever-so-carefully examined and weighed and  _ seen _ and--

Yeah, that hadn’t helped calm him down. 

And now here he sat, deeply in situ of ‘Post-Klaus’ and his words had  _ meaning _ to people. Children listened when he told them things, so did adults-- so did his own  _ dad _ . And it wasn’t about appeasing him, it was about respect and sometimes interest and occasionally…

Occasionally it was out of affection.  _ And sometimes _ , he could fool himself,  _ it seemed almost out of adoration. _

That was a word that lately had lent him its weight. Wrapped itself around his shoulders and squeezed and smushed him tight. To adore was to love in so soft, so aching a way that it got caught. Wispy and light and flighty in the throat and could only escape when tripped out between the lips of another language. 

Jesper coughed and turned back to the wood he was sanding into a small, flat cow. He could almost hand it off to someone for painting, he’d discovered long ago that dealing with the paintbrushes was not something he thrived on. He folded the sheet of sandpaper in half, doing his best to get the curve on the cows left ear just right. He blew softly at the wood dust. The smell of it pushed close, and watched as it floated off into a sunbeam spinning around each other in lazy circles.

“You know that cow has been pancaked, right?” Alva asked in his ear, leaning over his chair with a wicked grin. He let out a yelp, the cow shot up into the air and seemed to hang there for a second before falling again. Alva snatched it before it hit the ground, easy as breathing.

Jesper huffed and stared her down.

She shrugged raised an eyebrow, “Feeling a little jumpy, Jesper? I wonder why that is.”

“ _ God _ , Alva that was so unnecessary.”

She pressed a hand to her chest, mock offence clear on her sharp face. “You think I did that on purpose? Oh, sir! surely you don't mean to wound me this way, why would I ever--!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah--”

“Jesper, in  _ all _ my years I have never--!”

“Alva, you’re like twenty six at the  _ most _ \--!”

She was laughing now, sharp and kind and wrapped in homey laughter. Jesper grinned back, he couldn't have stopped himself if he wanted to.

“Point  _ is,  _ I’m headed out. If you need your weird squished cow painted you're going to have to go talk to Klaus.”

Jesper looked at her consideringly. Alva had brushed her hair out and was wearing the slightest sheen of lip balm. “Hot date  _ again _ tonight? Did the last one go that well?”

Her smile melted into something more private, quiet and full of memory. Jesper took a moment to consider what might have been, in a slightly different world.

“She's really sweet, Jesper. I know it's too soon but…” Alva shook her head a little, clearing the clouds behind her eyes, “Anyway,” she gave him a pointed look,”that's hardly what we should be talking about while  _ you _ are still on the clock.”

Jesper rolled his eyes, “Yes, okay very  _ subtle  _ Alva, I’ll bring it to Klaus.”

She smiles at him, then stood ready to swan away, before looking over her shoulder again, “You--” She hesitated there, unsure if it was her place to say anything. “You could feel this way too, you know that.”

Jesper's lips tightened, he felt his jaw clench. Alva walked away before he could say anything. Opened the door to afternoon sun and snow, the wind swirled around her once and she saluted him before closing it behind her.

Jesper grumbled quietly to himself, a string of mockery and frustration, voice high and reedy to mock her in a way Alvas’ never was. “You could be  _ just _ as incandescently happy as me, who has a second whole date, you really could!” He snorted, and started carving out the nostrils just a little frantically. “After all your ador- affection! Affection. It’s one hundred percent guaranteed to be well received! The guy is absolutely not still hung up on his beautiful wife who died tragically! Just be  _ brave _ , Jesper!”

His voice dropped back down to his regular pitch as he realized the cows nose was more of one giant hole-- he hadn't been paying close enough attention. “Awe, shit.” he dragged his thumb over the cows face, disproportionately upset about it. He dropped his head into his hands and heaved a rough, wet sigh. “This sucks.”

Jesper moped about it for a while. 

Moping was something he was really quite good at. It fell under the sub-category of pouting, which he had been polishing to a perfect sheen his entire life. He was also  _ very _ talented at whining, sulking, being petulant and pining. He was ever so good at pining.

Heaving another great sigh, Jesper stood, picked up his little cow figure and went to find Klaus. He might know how to fix this.

Klaus was pouring over some new designs, tinkering with the measurements of some miniaturized clock work. It looked so complicated and detailed and accident prone that Jesper could feel a headache coming on if he stood next to Klaus too long while he worked on it. The other man, contrastingly, seemed to adore every second of the work. Poured hours of trial and error into this project, grinning along the whole time. It baffled Jesper, that a man with hands that big, fingers that thick, could work on something the size of a coin with forty-six moving parts and be perfectly content. And do  _ well _ . The prototypes were almost complete, and then Klaus could start actually using it in the toys, making them smaller, lighter weight, longer lasting.

Maybe Klaus wasn’t the only one excited about the clockwork. Lighter toys meant they could deliver farther away and make more kids happy and that, surprising Jesper more than anyone else, was incredibly important to him.

Jesper flopped into the smaller chair at Klaus’ side that he had started leaving out for him when Jesper worked late nights. He needed more breaks and distractions the longer he stayed in the workshop.

“Hey, Jesper.” Klaus murmured, his eye scrunched up around the jeweler's glass Jesper had brought him back from town the other day. Magnifying glasses only helped so much.

Wordlessly, he placed the cow right in front of the clockwork Klaus was focusing on. He made a drawn out groaning noise, pathetic and heartbreaking. See? Down to an art.

Klaus spared him a quick look before gently picking the cow up, lifting it to his eye a moment, and putting it down in front of Jesper again. 

“Too bad.” 

Jesper blinked. Klaus picked up his tools again.

“I…?  _ Too bad? _ ” His voice broke, “What do you  _ mean _ too bad?”

Klaus shrugs, “It’s a nice piece of wood. You have started actually working with the grain. You’re improving.”

“Okay, thank you-- obviously. Your lukewarm praise warms the cockles of my heart-- but how do I  _ fix _ it?”

“Fix it?”

“ _ Obviously _ ! Yes! You’re the woodworker here, Klaus! What are your amazing tips, tricks and insights.”

Klaus put down the jeweler's glass and turned to face him, after carefully placing the clockwork on the table.

“Jesper, you’ve practically carved her face off.” He gestured at the cow, who stood on the table looking awkward, forlorn and yes, maybe a little faceless.

“Okay but… That’s… I can  _ fix _ it, right?” Jesper’s voice came out a little choked.  _ Embarrassing _ . 

Klaus, as usual, saw right through him.

“Who’s it for?” His voice was  _ not _ constricted and Jesper burned with jealousy over it. Absolutely jealousy. 

Jesper coughed, hoping it would help with the tightness. “There’s…” He sighed. “Alva has been telling me about this kid in her class… He just lost his mother and wants to be a farmer and loves learning about cows-- his last  _ three essays _ have been about them and--”

Klaus laid one of his too big hands on Jesper's shoulder. “Come with me.”

He stood, Jesper followed.

***

“So then we take the resulting paste and…” Klaus put down a layer of the glue and sawdust in the hole, careful and patient. “This is more for cracking… but it may work for this too.”

Jesper smiled at him, “So I sand it down and try again?”

“After letting it set, yes.” Klaus nodded, carefully starting to shape a rugged curve of the nose. Jesper smacked at his hands lightly a few times, impatient and protective of his work.

“Okay  _ thank _ you, I’ll do the rest!”

Klaus looked at him. That in itself wasn’t any sort of revelation. Klaus often looked at him, even gazed. The expression on his face though… That expression ushered in the word Jesper had been trying to forget.

Klaus put the cow in Jesper’s hand. It was so careful, so deliberate and warm. Jesper felt like his skin shimmered in the candlelight, like he trembled and flickered.

“It  _ is  _ good work, Jesper.” Those eyes were so soft. The expression so open. Jesper breathed around it, best he could.

“Thanks.”

Klaus was still supporting his hands, the cow cupped in them. A matryoshka doll of Klaus, Jesper, Cow. What a silly thought. He wanted for much to place the cow down, but he couldn’t do so without taking his hands out of Klaus’. Who knew when he’d hold them like this again?

“Will you tell me about your mother?”

Jesper looked up too quickly, felt a twinge of pain in his neck. “Mom?”

Klaus nodded and Jesper could see the rare self doubt climbing onto his expression. “If you want to.”

Jesper looked back at the cow and blinked back tears, “How long will she take to set?”

“A couple of hours. Maybe longer.” Jesper tried to imagine telling himself when he first met Klaus that the man could be this velvet soft, like the first sip of a hot toddy on a day so cold it ripped the breath from him. 

He nodded. Carefully lifted his hands. Placed Cow on the arm of the chair by the fire and sat down.

“Okay.”

Klaus squeezed in beside him and for a moment Jesper is back on their first trip, nestled in his side, destination hesitantly in mind.

“Her name was Berita.” 

Oh, it had been such a long time since he said her name out loud.

“Dad doesn’t like to talk about her much. I knew her for a while when I was young… seven or eight.” Jesper rubbed at his fingernails, picking drying glue off of his skin. Some of the sawdust still clung to him. “Her name suited her. I remember how warm she was. How she smelled. She used to braid her hair every night, just to keep it neat. She’d do mine too if I used my manners…”

He couldn’t look at Klaus, focused on pulling the bits of glue away. 

“That was very sweet of her.”

Jesper smiled tentatively. “It was. I still make cookies how she taught me… I’ve never tasted anything better.”

Klaus lit up. Jesper grinned and stood. Grabbed Klaus’ hand and pulled him to the kitchen, and left Cow to dry in front of the fire.


	2. two

They only noticed the storm outside when they finally pulled the cookies from the oven. Jesper frowned out the window and glanced at his uniform coat, much too thin for the weather normally-- let alone in a squall.

“Stay here tonight.” Klaus said, the suggestion flew from him, seemingly without a second thought. 

Jesper gaped at him before his words bubbled their way out.

“Here? Are you sure--?”

“What else would you do?”

Jesper cast his net wide, but still somehow only managed to come up with, “Maybe-- I don’t know, I could-- I could borrow your coat..!”

Klaus and his thundering chuckle reverberated through the house and Jespers chest, at home in each space. It made Jesper feel like he was made of cotton, insides sticky with honey. He valiantly fought it off as Klaus settled, twinkling away, steeped in mirth. 

“For what, Jesper. A tent?”

Jesper looked at him, flat and unimpressed. “You aren't that much bigger than me.”

“Oh no?” Klaus asked, raising his big bushy eyebrows high. And, okay. Fine. Yes, Klaus was absolutely massive and Jesper was a little slip of a thing, but that wasn't what mattered. what mattered was that he was not sleeping with Klaus in his marriage bed.

Klaus seemed to read his mind, as was getting increasingly, terrifyingly common. 

“I think one of the kids beds would fit you.” Teasing Jesper seemed to bring some lightness to the mention of his children. It still weighed on Jesper whenever it came up. How regrets could weigh on a person and stretch them in ways they weren’t meant to be. 

Jesper heaved a huge sigh, swinging his body around. 

He heaped himself in dramatics, teetered on a mountain of overcomplicated hand gestures and eye rolls. It kept the both of them safe, wrapping them in a thick blanket of irony and humour. Things could be taken as seriously or as lightly as the other wanted, the pace easy to set and be comfortable in. Just easy and warm and comfortable and honey gold.

“Alright, show me the childrens size bed I will perfectly fit into because I’m the size of your pinky, then.”

Klaus grinned at him for a moment, and didn’t move. Just stood there and beamed, sunshine against the driving snow outside. It was well past dark inside the house, things dim and grey except for Klaus and his unabashed smile.

Jesper waved his hand in front of Klaus’ face, “Hellooo...? Still in there big guy?”

Klaus didn’t stop smiling, just shoved Jespers hand out of his face with a laugh and started walking away.

“Hey!” Jesper yelped, gathering the cookies on a plate and hurrying after him. “Your giant legs are making you go so much faster than teeny tiny-- Oh!”

Klaus had opened an unobtrusive door that Jesper had walked past the whole time they knew each other without a second thought. 

The first thing Jesper noticed was how clean the room was. All the other artifacts of Klaus’ life had been covered in thick dust, hushed into quiet by the blankets swaddling the memories. This room, however, has been dusted. And recently.

It had a small carpet that looked like someone’s first foray into hooking. The curtains were thin, embroidered along the bottom with a bold and messy flower pattern that made Jesper smile, crooked and joyful at the honesty of it all.

Then he saw the bed.

“Klaus, really?” The man snickered at him, stood closer to him, shared his own warmth and honesty and joy.

“That or you share mine.”

“Or the tent in the woods. I don’t care what you say -- that’s a viable option and another genius idea from me.” He muttered to himself, turning again to look at the bed. It was very small and shaped like a sleigh. There was a crib beside it that Jesper refused to look at. That was a little too open, a little too real.

Jesper handed the plate of cookies off and took a hesitant step, then another. Sat himself on the edge of the old bed. He glanced at Klaus, who was leaning in the doorway looking very smug, a cookie already in his mouth.

As Jesper threw himself across the bed to test the size of the mattress (too small by a foot at least) he wondered, for the first time, if Klaus wanted him in his bed.

It was a ridiculous notion, he chastised himself. Covered his blushing face with a heavy arm, murmured into his shirt that he’d found his dream bed and was moving in, a half-assed joke that left him more vulnerable than intended. He refused to look at Klaus, who had gone silent. 

“Are you still living at the post office?”

Suddenly, with every fiber of his being, Jesper needed to not be having this conversation. He swung himself back to his feet, “That cow should be just about done huh-- I’m going to go check on her-- it-- the, the cow.” 

He pushed past Klaus, ignored the brown sugar shaved wood smells that flooded over him, pointedly and purposefully. Absolutely not. He would not be shaken.

“Awe, Jesper I just meant--”

“Is there anything about the wood glue setting I need to know?” His voice was shrill but if Klaus loved him he’d ignore it.

Fuck. If Klaus cared, he meant-- if he-- could read his feelings-- no-- if he was being--

“The glue is heat-resistant it should be fine by the fire that long.” Klaus was low, steady, thrumming.

Camping outside in a snowstorm was looking like a better and better by the minute.

The cow was fine, her nose all filled in, only in need of a soft shaping. Jesper got to it, just as Klaus had taught him early on-- sanding slowly. He fell into the soft steady rhythm and didn’t let himself register it when Klaus walked back into the work room, more slowly than normal.

That night Klaus had come into the post office, wordlessly helped him and taught him… Jesper thought about it often. Probably too often. Doing something so wordless and thoughtful and kind had swelled so big in Jespers chest it had almost choked him, he had felt it gather in his eyes and catch in his throat. Even now it clung to his edges. They sunk into that same silence often-- caring and quiet, a mutual understanding and goal-- but not tonight.

It was silent, and the bulk of that pressed into Jesper, made itself hard to breath around. So dissimilar than the last time they had that existence, so empty of words.

He knew break it would be simple. He imagined how he’d do it, what words he’d clumsy throw, fumble through with the express purpose of filling the space between them to rupture. Somewhere in his repetitions ‘I’m sorry’ turned to ‘I’m worried’ turned to ‘I’m scared’ turned to ‘I’m overwhelmed’, turned to ‘I love you’ and then his jaw clenched, tightened and twisted in on itself.

He knew he wouldn’t be the one to break it now. 

Silently, he found the pots of paint; black, white, and red.

He mixed in the oily layer on the top of the white, watched the yellow liquid sink into the pot, change the viscosity. He was very aware of his own mouth, the seam between his lips, how easily they parted normally and how they felt blanket-stitched shut now. He laid down a careful coat of paint, placed Cow to dry by the side. Agitated the black and red. Mixed a soft pink for the muzzle and inner ears. Painted her spots on too early, the black turned a streaky grey. Repainted when she dried a little more. All in that crushing, un-bursting silence.

When he finally glanced at Klaus, unable to contain it any longer, he was fast asleep in his armchair in front of the fire, mouth hanging open, head leaned back. Jesper placed Cow down softly. He stood and glided over, as silent as he could manage.

The softest snore was coming from Klaus’ open mouth. A low and quiet rasping rumble that jesper couldn’t hear from the working bench.

He had been the only one carrying the silence. Klaus was still so comfortable he could fall asleep. So relaxed and trusting in Jespers presence that he dozed in front of the fire, thick furs piled on top of him.

“Well,” Jesper whispered, still hyper aware of his lips, “I suppose that takes care of the bed issue.”

Only, it really didn’t. It hadn't been so much sleeping with Klaus (near Klaus-- beside Klaus) that had been the issue so much as Jesper laying down in the bed Klaus had shared with the love of his life like he could lay a claim there. Like he had any right to curl up on the pillow that guided a woman who was so loved into a lavender sleep.

Oh god, what if she had died on that bed?

Well. He had just said sleeping near Klaus wasn’t the issue, hadn’t he? Haltingly he wiggled into the wide chair with him, his mind flinging itself back to their first night together all over again. Jesper smiled sleepily. A perfectly exceptional solution.

Acceptable, he thought-- drowsy so suddenly it took his breath away. He meant to say acceptable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year 💗💗 thank you for all the sweet comments!!

**Author's Note:**

> my URL is lesbianalva bc im HONESTLY chasing this joy with everything in me-- literally working on a dollup of this magical mystery gf shes so cool and im so excited to intro her lol
> 
> also pls picture jesper saying thank you like this:  
> https://youtu.be/zv75bmxp2VQ?t=24


End file.
